The Red Rose Turning Over a New Leaf

When choosing new team members, one of the leading considerations is, without a doubt, the alignment of the individual to the core beliefs and values of your organisation. Whether the role is for a junior or senior position, this is relevant and becomes increasingly so as the person progresses through the organisation, responding to new demands and taking on more responsibilities.

Sometimes though, bringing in new blood creates an opportunity to consolidate and realign an organisation’s brand values, where simply singing from the same hymn sheet and following the accepted way in which the company must progress just won’t cut it. Take the example of a manager who is recruited to work under an MD who wishes to bring about a change or realignment in the organisation and therefore selects a second-in-command which many may view as controversial. A new manager with explicitly alternative methods can, in this case, provide a breath of fresh air, reinvigorating and reinventing what the company stands for.

The case of England Rugby Union’s new captain is a perfect example of such rebranding. Dogged by poor performances which were preventing the team from achieving the success which their potential suggested they should, the coach and his staff made a controversial decision to elect Dylan Hartley – a man with a year’s worth of suspensions due to a raft of disciplinary offences – as the captain and the leader of the team in practice on the field. In so doing, the coaching team (SMT) has ‘screamed from the rooftops’ that England will now look to play through a specific style of rugby that the hard-nosed Hartley epitomises. Such decisions are never easy ones, embroiled in risk as many criticise the unorthodoxy of following a new course, yet for success to be achieved, Eddie Jones et al feel there is a necessity for a change to the perception of English Rugby, which Hartley represents.

It is a shift in brand values that many will disagree with and find uncomfortable; a captain and therefore a team who are praised by the very fact that they have been selected, despite poor discipline. One consequence of such a change is that, whether it breeds success for the team or not, this new England Rugby brand could be perceived as advocating foul play and ill discipline and may lose many supporters in the process. Perhaps for Eddie Jones, this is a necessary evil in order to achieve his objectives, but nevertheless the change of brand values will have a profound effect on the reputation and popularity of the team. This begs the question what is the ultimate goal for English rugby? To win, or to establish role models for young people to aspire towards?

The recruitment of an individual outside of the company’s core beliefs and values can change the brand perception drastically, particularly when that person occupies a significant role. It is the job of the employer to establish their priorities, and weigh up whether the company’s new path for success is worth the change in perception which may come with it.

Why Practice in Leadership makes Perfect

If you watch any sports training session, you will see a lot of repetition. The players or athletes involved will be practising basic manoeuvres, over and over. Winning rests on absolute mastery of the basics, honing skills until they become second nature.
Building expertise in anything takes thousands of hours and it is only by practising continuously and learning from the experience that we achieve the level of skill we want and need.

There are many reasons you might want to learn and develop a skill, but for those who have been in business for some years, you’ll know that the fast-pace of change means that the ability to learn new skills is key to continued growth and success. The challenge is that continuous improvement requires us to stretch ourselves, and as I know from personal and professional experience, that isn’t always comfortable.

So whether you are seeking to acquire a new skill yourself or looking to develop others within your team, here’s what you need to ask yourself:

1. Are you ready?
In two ways – firstly do you have the basic competency to attain the skill? Secondly, how much time and energy are you able and willing to give to learning and developing the skill? It is a common misconception to think that if you have to work hard at learning a new skill it means there is a lack of ability. This is a limiting belief – being ready and committed to working hard is a choice. As Apple founder, Steve Jobs said, “I’m convinced about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”

2. Is it needed and what’s the return?
Gaining a new skill is an investment and you need to know what the return for learning it will be. Simply improving an existing skill can make a big difference to an individual, team or organisation’s performance, provided it’s the right skill for the business.

3. What help can you get?
Help and support from other will keep you motivated to continue learning and practicing. Just like the football coach who maintains the discipline of practice drills to build competency as well and introduces new techniques to learn, a qualified business coach, trainer or mentor will encourage and support you. Recruit colleagues, friends and anyone who’ll let you practice your skills – people you trust to say the things you need to hear, to give you honest and constructive feedback in a way that keeps you accountable and helps you to cement the change.

4. Do you need to pace yourself?
Be realistic about how much you can take on. In the same way that so many people join a gym with the best intentions of going several times a week but gradually, over time, lose motivation, so learning a new skill can fall by the wayside unless you see specific results along the way. Be selective, choose the key skills that are going to make the biggest difference in the shortest space of time. Once you start seeing and experiencing the positive difference they make, you’ll be inspired to keep going.

5. How do you know when you’re ready to put in practice what you’ve learned?
The only way to know the answer to this question is to do it. The only way to become a great presenter is to present. The only way to become the runner who has just finished a marathon is to go running. You might dread the presenting or the running, but it’s the doing that takes you down the road to becoming.

If you need help to see where the leadership and management skills gaps are in your business, or want to hear more about how we can help you embed and use new skills with confidence, or would like to get a handle on how skills training could help your organisation, then get in touch. If perfection is the goal then practice is what you need and we’d love to help.

England Rugby and the reality of failure

As most of you will probably already know, either from reading my posts or knowing me personally, I am a huge rugby fan. Therefore, it goes without saying that the last couple of weeks have been incredibly tough to digest. Feedback of this magnitude for any England team is embarrassing, but to lose at Twickenham twice as a team that many touted as potential winners of the competition, is a hard pill to swallow. (For those of you unaware, England bowed out of a home World Cup in the group rounds, the first host nation ever not to reach the quarter finals.)

Even when a long term plan is established, with intimate detail applied to the strategy of achieving the long term goal, no matter how much achieving that target means to you, your team or your company, sometimes your best just isn’t good enough. It’s the harsh reality of life, sport and business, which unfortunately we must all accept as part of what we do, and do our best to learn from the experience so that it does not rear its’ ugly head again. In this instance, the RFU will have time following the competition to absorb the consequences of this result, and make rational decisions about the best way to move forward.

With this being said, the reality is that there is a strong likelihood that members of the squad and the coaching staff will be dropped. When a result as drastic as this occurs, sometimes the only option is to overhaul the staff and start afresh, with a new long term plan in mind. My prediction is that Ian Ritchie (Chief Executive of the RFU) will not act so strongly. There will be changes and certainly some will lose their jobs as a consequence, but on the whole I am of the opinion that the team we see in four years time at the next World Cup will not be a million miles from what we have seen at this one. This is because despite a clear need for improvement, a team needs consistency and familiarity. Ritchie will be aware of this, and will make the necessary changes while causing minimum disruption.

If a company fails to achieve growth from one year to the next, perhaps they even regress in some way, tough decisions have to be made. But the time to make these decisions is not in the immediate aftermath. Don’t be tempted to pull the trigger and act irrationally, allow the dust to settle and assess with a clear mind the good and the bad, undisturbed by emotion, as Ian Ritchie should do.

A Manager's Greatest Compliment

As a leader in the boardroom or in sport, there will inevitably be times when someone just doesn’t quite fit the team. Such scenarios often become obvious quite quickly, in which case the decision to let the individual leave is a simple one. But what if it isn’t so clear cut? Such decision making becomes far more ambiguous once one or more of the following factors come into play:

* Perhaps the company went out of their way to recruit this individual
* Their experience provided the perfect background for the role with you
* There may be a personal relationship that has been built up over time

Such cases often lead to procrastination on the part of the leader, as no decision is perhaps seen as a better way to avert criticism than a wrong decision. The final choice, in such situations, should always include what is best for the employee themselves. For certain, as business managers and owners, our first priority will always be the success of the company, yet if a member of the team is unhappy in your environment, regardless of their ability, they are less likely to achieve their potential, and as managers, surely unlocking that potential is the fundamental goal. Using a sport analogy, a player at a smaller club may have the ability to achieve greater things, but to do this they must transfer to a larger club. Gareth Bale, the ‘Welsh Wizard’, epitomised this with a transfer from Tottenham Hotspur to Real Madrid, a club at which he now thrives. Those of you with any level of interest in sport could list dozens of similar examples. It is not necessarily the case that the employee is any better than anyone else within the company, just that a change of environment is required for them, and for the rest of your team.

It goes without saying that letting an employee go should be seen only ever as a last resort. Before taking such a decision, all alternatives should be exhausted to see if you can reach an understanding of why there is an issue, and if it can be resolved. However if the issue is beyond repair, perhaps cutting across beliefs and values of the organisation or your management style, it is probably time to part company.

Such decisions are hardly easy, but they allow the individual to excel personally even if that requires leaving your team, providing them with the platform to move onto better things. It also relieves the rest of your team of any tension or stress that having the individual on board may have caused, allowing them to deliver an improved performance. Fundamentally, when we look beyond our selfish interests, is this not a manager’s greatest accolade - the encouragement and facilitation of success for employees in whatever way possible, even if that means letting them go?

Their failure to thrive in your environment may present the opportunity for them to succeed in someone else’s.

Coaching to achieve High Business Growth

Are you thinking of starting a strategic review of your business and have ambitions for growth? Don’t miss out on government investment, match funding and business development coaching through the Growth Accelerator Programme.

If you’re not familiar with Growth Accelerator, it is the premier support service that helps ambitious
business owners based in England achieve rapid sustainable growth, with the Government co-
investing and making a major contribution towards the overall cost of the support package offered
by the scheme. There are 4 areas of available support: Business Development, Access to Funding, Growth through Innovation and Leadership and Management.

What’s impressive is that the scheme is genuinely unlocking new high growth potential and, even
more encouragingly, it is literally coming from anywhere. In other words as long as the management team has the ambition and determination to develop skills to make it happen you don’t have to be a start-up business, based in London or other city centres to achieve success.

How do you know if it’s right for you? The initial consultation with a Growth Manager normally
results in a 3-part strategy and marketing review to highlight and resolve the blockages that are
preventing your business from breaking through into full-scale growth. At this point you will be
assigned a Growth Accelerator Coach, like me, who will meet with your leadership to identify what
needs to be done and set you on course to get things done.

What are the key issues that need addressing? In my experience the biggest needs are:

1. Getting the leadership team, who are constantly pulled back into operational issues, to step
   back from the business and think strategically. This doesn’t always come easy.
2. Getting individual members of the leadership team to understand each other’s thinking and
   re-aligning them to the overall vision and strategy.
3. Identifying skills gaps and training needs to make sure the business delivers the anticipated
   growth.

How quickly the scheme produces results depends on how well the business acts on what needs to be done to get there, but the feedback is good. A report published by Growth Accelerator in
September 2013 said that 3,400 businesses are increasing turnover more quickly and 3,100 are
increasing employment at a faster rate as a result of working with Growth Accelerator. 78% said the initial assessment provided clarity on how to drive growth, 77% said they got something from
Growth Accelerator that they couldn’t get elsewhere and 94% of businesses receiving Business
Development coaching said they have achieved an outcome they couldn’t have by themselves.

So whether you’ve been in business for many years or are a relative newcomer, if growth is your
goal and you have the determination and motivation to make it happen then now’s a great time to
act. As an accredited Growth Accelerator coach I can refer you to a Growth Manager to get you started, so get in touch Tel: 01778 424640.